Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

• Acts 4:12

“Imagine a group of people who have come together to socialize. The conversation is in full swing, lively, almost out of control. One person can hardly wait to have his say till the other is through with his, and everybody takes part more or less actively as in a debate.”

• Søren Kierkegaard, Provocations (from Anxiety and the Gospel of Suffering)

This is the situation that Kierkegaard proposes.  Then a stranger sees the animated conversation, and thinks it is of the utmost importance.  Without listening carefully, he interjects into the conversation to find that they were speaking of a triviality.  He is uncomfortable in that he gave the wrong value to their conversation.  The group is ill-at-ease because this stranger interrupted them and the reverie of the animated conversation is gone.

But then, what if the conversation is of the utmost importance to God, but the world sees it as trivial?  The same thing happens.  The stranger sees the conversation as trivial although he does not know that the conversation is of the utmost importance.

How can you bridge that gap?  Should you simply change the subject?  How can the group regain their lively conversation with a stranger who thinks of them as talking trivial talk?

But within the soul of every person, there is this strife of finding one’s way and finding purpose in this world.  Some bury the strife with platitudes about how God might not even exist anyway.  They fool themselves into thinking that only the believers are suffering, and they know what life is about.

But as the stranger looked at the animated conversation, everyone in that group was excited and everyone contributed equally to the conversation, and the stranger only entered the conversation because it seemed important.  Why did the conversation seem important to them?  Do they know something that the stranger does not know?  Did he tune them out too hastily?

“But it is certain that every person, every sufferer has opportunity, in one way or another, to become aware of this strife.  And it is this strife that underlies all others. Oh, whoever you are, pay heed to this sacred strife.  This alone is the strife of eternity.”

• Søren Kierkegaard, Provocations (from Anxiety and the Gospel of Suffering)

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.